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Saturday, 21 October 2017

Rucksack Of Grief

Today marks two years since we lost Michele, my sister, so how does it feel? Well no less painful than it was that day 21st October 2015 when she was taken from us. But I have learnt many things, that grief is an individual journey, one that we must travel alone, because what works for one doesn't necessarily work for another and no journey is wrong or right, just right for the one walking it.

So from my own path I can tell you that time doesn't heal and things don't get better, how could things possibly ever get better when the people you love the most have gone? As the realization of that began to creep in I likened it to when I was first diagnosed with the illness M.E & stripped of everything that I thought made me who I was, job, social life, identity & place in the world, that too was an all consuming grief and that's why this feels similar. when we lost Michele and also my brother Michael 5 months beforehand I felt like an abandoned toddler in the middle of a high-street, Samson with his hair cut off, Superman breathing in Kryptonite. In fact that's how it still feels.

I don't really know what i'm doing here or what my point and purpose is any more? Having a big brother and sister kinda gives you the strength to climb mountains, they allowed me to be the annoying little sister I was.There's a humour, a banter, conversations and memories you can only share with a sibling, and since losing them both I feel lost & frightened, like a small rowing boat gone adrift, and despite decades of meditation my mind often feels the same as I picture the little boat drifting aimlessly, bobbing about in my head, crashing into the rocks of emotion jutting out, guilt, anger, sadness, confusion, Sure I can tame it for an hour or two, but somehow grief always takes over the reigns of control again and I find myself blubbing at least once a day?

The other thing I've come to realize is there's no escaping this monster grief. I'm sure it would help a little to be in good health so that at least I could pretend I was running away from it for a short while, hop on a plane, train, automobile, or even just use my legs to run the emotional pain out of my body to make room for the next wave, but grief is here to stay, it's like wearing a rucksack that you can't shake off, wherever you go it goes too & It's hard to sleep or do anything with a rucksack of grief on your back let me tell you. It unbalances you most days until you topple over, but when it does you just have to scramble back up on your feet and keep putting one foot in front of the other, if you can't do it for yourself then do it for your loved ones, You know it's what they would want?

I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing & that I've always tried to do, you know? breathe in and out, eat, try to serve others and be a decent human being, but that my friends is about as far as I've got, but that's okay.

I still have my sisters number on my phone & desperately want to call her in the hope she'll answer, I want to hear her laugh & call me Scrappydoo, see her cheeky smile, tell me about what she's been doing at work and at church, watch her eat cake & Snicker bars and drink frothy coffee, I want to hold her hand, but I can't, it's all in the rucksack of grief that I have to somehow get use to wearing from now on. So I can only hope that while I know I'll never grow to love it like a pair of Pyjamas or woolly socks in Winter I will one day get used to wearing it? Today my thoughts are with all the family including Micheles church family and friends, and all those who have lost somebody, I will of course eat cake, she'd expect nothing less.